GE Aerospace’s Bengaluru centre drives AI innovation for the aircraft engine powerhouse

The story of GE Aerospace, the global powerhouse for aircraft engines, in India began in the year 2000 when it established the John F. Welch Technology Centre (JFWTC) in Bengaluru, its first such centre outside of the US.

As AI reshapes the aerospace industry, the Bengaluru centre finds itself at the forefront of innovation. From designing engines to operations and even maintenance, AI solutions have streamlined workflows in the company. AI, for example, has improved issue detection by 45% or reduced false alerts by 50%.

In an e-mail interview with EnterpriseStory, Arioli Arumugam, Vice President - Artificial Intelligence, Commercial Engines and Services, GE Aerospace, explains about the changes they are witnessing through AI and how the Bengaluru centre is driving local innovation that has global impact.

GE Aerospace Bengaluru is a multi-disciplinary location that drives global innovation.

Edited excerpts

EnterpriseStory: How is AI transforming the aerospace industry?

Arioli Arumugam: Artificial intelligence is reshaping aerospace end-to-end from how we design engines to how we maintain and operate them in service. Across the lifecycle, AI is moving the industry from reactive, condition-based actions to more predictive, data-driven decisions that enhance reliability, efficiency, and responsiveness for our customers.

In operations, we use AI in 24x7 engine health monitoring to detect emerging patterns in data from our global fleet of nearly 50,000 commercial engines to gain 60% early lead times on maintenance needs while reducing false alerts in half.

In maintenance, AI-assisted inspection tools are improving consistency and cutting turbine blade inspection time in half to improve shop turnaround times and increase time-on-wing. 

In engineering, generative AI is accelerating design exploration by producing hundreds of design iterations in seconds, with the potential to compress development cycles for future propulsion systems while enhancing delivery of the best, most proven end products.

Our approach is grounded in responsible AI: trusted data, transparency into model insights, and a human-in-the-loop for critical decisions - guardrails that are essential in aviation.

EnterpriseStory: How is GE Aerospace integrating or imbibing AI into its setup especially at its India centre?

Arioli Arumugam: We are integrating AI as a core capability across our operations, with our data science and AI team at GE Aerospace’s Bengaluru technology centre playing a crucial role in this global strategy. For over 25 years, the India centre has been a hub for engineering and digital innovation, contributing significantly to the development and deployment of AI-powered solutions that serve customers worldwide.

Bengaluru teams are advancing predictive maintenance that is building analytics that increase time‑on‑wing and improve reliability for our global fleet. They contributed to GE Aerospace’s Analytics‑Based Maintenance (ABM) tool that helps reduce unscheduled removals for CFM LEAP operators. The ABM tool uses an AI algorithm to identify maintenance needs for critical parts earlier, providing sufficient time for operators to plan ahead for when engines need to come in for service.

The team helped develop AI‑powered inspection tools like the Blade Inspection Tool that cut borescope processing time by ~50% while improving inspection consistency. The centre is also a strong adopter and shaper of our internal generative AI platform, AI Wingmate, to enhance the productivity of our employees.

EnterpriseStory: What changes or benefits has GE Aerospace accrued through the integration of AI?

Arioli Arumugam: The integration of artificial intelligence has delivered substantial benefits across GE Aerospace's operations, enhancing efficiency, reliability, and productivity.

AI is delivering measurable outcomes for our customers and operations by strengthening reliability and speeding turnaround. Around-the-clock AI‑enabled engine health monitoring has improved issue detection by 45%, reduced false alerts by 50%, and accelerated identification of maintenance needs by 60%, enabling better planning and fewer unexpected operational events.

By linking operational data with digital twins to forecast final work scopes before engines arrive at MRO facilities, we are improving parts preparedness and achieving faster overhaul turnaround getting engines back on wing sooner. We have also seen faster, more consistent inspections with AI-assisted tools, which contribute to reduced MRO turnaround times.

EnterpriseStory: What has been the role of the GE Aerospace India Centre in building or developing AI platforms?

Arioli Arumugam: Our Bengaluru team is a cornerstone of GE Aerospace’s global AI strategy designing, validating, and scaling solutions that improve reliability and efficiency for our customers worldwide. We have over 1,000 unique aviation technology patents filed from the John F. Welch Technology Centre, a powerhouse of innovation in India over the last quarter century. In the AI domain, GE Aerospace is among the industry’s top AI patent holders, and a significant portion of that innovation comes from India.

Teams at the India Centre are central to advancing predictive maintenance, engineering analytics, and digital twins that link operational data back to design models supporting faster insights and improved lifecycle decisions.

We have the advantage of engineering, research, and digital teams being collocated in Bengaluru, creating a powerful ecosystem for collaboration, problem-solving, and innovation. Bengaluru’s work on deployments like AI-guided blade inspections demonstrates how local innovation scales to global impact.

EnterpriseStory: What is GE Aerospace's AI Wingmate platform programme?

Arioli Arumugam: The AI Wingmate platform is a secure, internal generative AI platform developed by GE Aerospace, in partnership with Microsoft, to provide our employees with access to new tools that help them enhance productivity and streamline workflows.

The platform has been rapidly adopted, with approximately 11,000 employees using it daily. It complements our responsible AI principles which is trusted data, transparency, and a human-in-the-loop by keeping domain experts central to decisions while enabling faster, better-informed outcomes.